On Monday, Fox News covered Vladimir Putin's threat that if the US government goes ahead with setting up a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, Russia will target its own missiles at European targets.

The discussion led to an unlikely reversal of political positions, with conservative Fox political analyst Tammy Bruce describing the situation as "another glaring example of the growing incompetency of the Bush administration and his foreign policy," while Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded that "I support Bush on this ... and it's a strange day when I do that."

Bruce began by defending Putin and asked how we in the US would feel if Russian missiles were sited in Cuba or Honduras. She pointed out that the US missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland are supposedly intended to guard against the threat of potential Iranian long-range missiles, even though those missiles don't yet exist and we've said we're not going to allow Iran to develop them.

She then blew up about immigration and Iraq as well, saying, "I'm waiting to find the space aliens that kidnapped the president that I grew to admire after September 11 and left this tool behind. ... I'm furious."

When Beckel weighed in to insist that in this case he doesn't think Bush deserves conservative anger, because "Putin has been a thug from the beginning," Bruce retorted that "every maniac in the world has felt empowered during the last five years. That is the president's issue ... because Bush has been so ineffective."

The following video is from Fox's American Newsroom, broadcast on June 4.